Earlier this week, the TTB issued an Industry Circular providing additional guidance for alcohol beverage producers, importers, and wholesalers using social media.

The TTB regulates the advertising of wine, distilled spirits, and beer, and generally prohibits deceptive or misleading advertising.  The TTB also prohibits industry members from engaging in certain advertising practices or making certain statements.  For example, wine advertisements may not disparage a competitor’s products or make statements or including designs that are “obscene or indecent.”  There are a number of other restrictions in the Code of Federal Regulations.

In addition, there are certain mandatory statements that must appear in advertisements for alcohol beverages, including but not limited to the name and location of the industry member and the class and type of alcohol.

The Industry Circular makes clear that TTB’s regulations regarding mandatory statements and prohibited practices extends to social media channels, including social network services such as Facebook, video sharing sites such as YouTube, blogs, and “microblogs” (which according to TTB, includes Twitter and Tumblr), and mobile applications.

Here’s a quick summary of the guidelines regarding those channels:

A few interesting take-aways from reviewing the TTB guidelines.

First, industry members that maintain a social network presence, such as a Facebook fan page, are responsible for content that they post, but the advisory seems to carve out posts by consumers on industry member sites or pages.  For example, in discussing social networks, the circular states:  “TTB considers fan pages for alcohol beverage products or companies and any content regarding alcohol beverage products posted to the pages by the industry member to …[be] subject to the provisions of the FAA Act and TTB regulations.”  By focusing on content “posted to the pages by the industry members,” the TTB apparently recognized that alcohol beverage companies should not be held responsible should a “fan” post a comment that violates federal regulations.

Second, the mandatory information provisions related to “microblogs” do not take into account the fact that Twitter’s profile is limited to 160 characters.  While the TTB explicitly stated that each individual “microblog post” (i.e., “Tweet”) need not contain the mandatory statements because the 140 character limitation makes it “impractical” to do so, it also recommended that the mandatory statements should appear on the “microblog profile page.”

Third, the TTB also stated that if an industry member includes a “link” to another website or other content, the TTB may consider the contents of that link as part of the industry member’s advertisement.  Thus, by including a link to other content, the industry member may be responsible should that content fail to comply with TTB advertising regulations.

Finally, the TTB Industry Circular made no mention of third party marketing websites, and whether producers were responsible should the content of those websites violate the advertising regulations.

While there are still some unanswered questions regarding federal regulation of alcohol beverage online advertising, one thing is clear:  producers, importers, wholesalers, and anyone involved in the promotion or sale of alcohol beverages should comply with the mandatory statements and prohibited advertising practices regardless of what channel they use for advertising.

This post is made available for general informational purposes only and none of the information provided should be considered to constitute legal advice